The following synth pads often do not transition smoothly between chords. Sometimes it sounds pretty smooth. Other times it's as if someone would really quickly just hammer the new chord. This is not such a big issue when a synth pad is used at the same time as a complete band, but if you play it alone or together with some instrument that does not drown it, it becomes clearly audible. Can this be fixed with some setting or do the synth pads simply not have transitions as smooth as other instruments?
1278:Synth Pad, PopUplift Ev 120
1842:Synth Pad, PopModernGrooveA-B Ev16 075
If you don't understand what I mean or if you can't reproduce the problem I could upload some audio files.
Thanks in advance!
Hi Alexander,
I have noticed what you mention. My take on this is that it occurs because BIAB splices a track together from recordings of actual live performances and, due to this slicing and splicing, it's possible to get a progression of chord tones that would not occur if one followed the principle of voice leading (as in classical harmony).
My experience tells me that smoothness of transition is affected by: (a) the choice of 'from' and 'to' chord (for example, F to Eb might not sound the smoothest of transitions for a particular Realtrack where as F7 to Eb might work fine for most song generations); (b) a particular generation of a track. Often, if a transition is not smooth, simply regenerating the individual track will solve the issue.
What I sometimes do to finalise my tracks is to take them to a DAW where I can copy and paste sections. Thus, if I have a problem section, I simply find a workable equivalent section within the song and then copy that section and paste it over the not-so-good section.
I also often polish up my song in Realband. I've found that working in Realband is a real bonus because it allows regenerations of specific regions of a track. This can be used to overcome any generation issues that arise.
Regards,
Noel
It's worse than that. These are audio files. If your specific chord progression was recorded by a live player on my Kurzweil PC3 those transitions would be good because of both the patch on the Kurz and the technique used by the player.
Now, shift that to Biab. How could this possibly be done properly when the person who recorded those tracks has no idea what chords you are going to use? This is exactly the same problem with any RT piano with sustained chords. A real pianist is using the sustain pedal to handle those transitions. But, that pedaling technique required the player to actually know and understand the chords as he's playing them. That's impossible in the studio because Miles Black or anybody else is only playing what's he's playing. If you happened to pick a chord progression that he played then the transitions will sound good because they're in the original RT studio recording. Otherwise you're going from one chord to another that was not recorded sequentially so the transition must be chopped. No other way.
The only way to do this is to have the RT players play every possible chord sequence there is using all possible chord voicings in order to cover every user's potential chords. Mathematically it's possible I guess with a 3 TB hard drive for just one RT.
Bob
Noel96 - Alright! I've never used RealBand. Maybe it would be a good idea to start learning how to use it then. But you still prefer to copy and paste in some other DAW?
Hi Alexander.
I do both.
Mostly I use Realband because I love Multiriff. Using this, I can generate up to seven different tracks of the same Realtrack. This gives me plenty of material from which to create the best compilation.
Here's a link to some Realband video tutorials that are worth having a look through.
http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.realband.htmSometimes I simply copy and paste in Reaper. I choose to do this if only one or two track adjustments are needed.
My theory is that the more tools I have in my song-creating tool-belt, the better off I am when it comes to making the best songs I can assemble.
All the best,
Noel
Working Backwards I am......
As you know doing some amount of work with User Tracks.
Taking a modified version of the UT 10 min template there is an external midi
created.
Within this midi template are some number of multi-bar chords.
Load Realband with this midi template.
Setup voicing and sounds wanted.
Render the Midi to a wav file.
Listen to the wav file and every chord sounds great.. and smooth.
Even the multi-bar chords. No breaks, bumps or sound changes across
the Bar.
Then complete the UT.
Pick out a BIAB style demo to pak with the UT zip.
Play this demo and across every bar is some kind of change.
Same chord, just a bump as tho the chord is re-played.
I did/do have a similar thread in the UT forum, but minimal responses.
Interesting to read what you folks have said.
seeker - I haven't looked into usertracks at all yet (I don't even know exactly how they work), so your post doesn't say much to me yet, but I will head to the usertracks forum and look now.
Hi Alexander,
We all know from the advertisements and useage that Band-in-a-Box and RealBand use pitch shifting and time compression/stretching technology. What we don't know are the "rules" the technologies follow.
Here is a gross example. Let's say you have two Realtracks, both containing the same chord progressions and riffs but one has a tempo of 80 bpm and the second at 120 bpm. Your song has a tempo of 100 bpm which Realtrack does it choose to load if you have automatic substitution selected? What if you don't have auto selection enabled? As you see, you can quickly come up with a bunch of sceneros where the final result can't be determined until it's heard. Now, let's say you need an "E" chord but one is not available from the RealTracks. We know an "E" will be created using pitch shift technology. There are now four different ways ( two source materials time pitch up or pitch down) to create the "E" chord and each way will most likely sound a little different.
RealBand and the multiriff feature really demonstrates these capabilities well. Playing the raw wma/wav RealTracks files in a media player helps you appreciate the thought and planning that has to be performed to create a RealTrack.
Hope this helped.
Alex,
They can be used like RealTracks, albeit maybe not as versatile
in their use.